O’Brien Cay Bahamas

By Saturday 30 March, we needed to start moving north up the Exumas chain so that we could get back to Nassau in time for Nici and Strevs’ flight out on the following Thursday.  So, that morning we turned north out of Black Point at Great Guana Cay and headed up the Grand Bahamas Bank side of the Exumas towards O’Brien Cay.  We had a fast, fun sail north in a brisk easterly wind, enough wind that we needed to put a reef in the main.  In the flat water behind the cays BV made good speed and in under 3 hours we were 18miles north of Great Guana Cay and preparing to motor the final few miles in to our intended anchorage off O’Brien Cay.

Following the deep water channel past Bell Island

Bell Island has some fabulous looking beaches
but, unfortunately for us, it’s a private island

This is another place where, because of BV’s draught (2m, 6ft 6in) we took a somewhat convoluted route into our intended anchorage, in this instance running in close past Bell Island.  Bell Island is a very attractive looking island with some beautiful beaches.  Unfortunately for us, it’s a private island.  What a shame we don’t know the owner!

The final part of the channel past Bell Island ends in a tight, narrow turn past the rocky outcrop above

At the northern end of Bell Island, the deep water channel ends in a charted tight, narrow turn.  From the helm’s position on the approach to the turn Nicky said that it looked very narrow and very tight and hoped that the charted depths were good.

And that tight, narrow turn past the rocky outcrop looked VERY narrow from the helm’s position
but it was all a bit deeper than the charts suggested anyway!

As it turned out, it was all a lot better than it appeared on the chart (so often the way) and it was deeper than charted too.

Top: O’Brien Cay.  Bottom: There are large areas of sandbores near O’Brien Cay

Across the other side of Bell Cut we headed across an area of sandbores, waves of sand like underwater dunes. Some bits are deep, some bits are pretty shallow but all of it was deep enough for BV.  We found a suitable place to anchor close to O’Brien Cay (actually just north of Pastue Cay) and immediately prepared for the reason that we had come here, a swim at ‘The Aquarium’ in the lee of an islet just to the north of O’Brien Cay.

A shark’s eye view of happy snorkellers

We dinghied over to the islet where there are a couple of dinghy moorings.  The islet sits in the centre of a cut through which the tide was running swiftly but the islet itself is slightly crescent shaped and in the protection of the curve of the crescent there was no tidal flow at all.

What a fabulous little snorkelling site!!

After jumping into the water we were amazed at how clear it was and how many fish we could see swimming around and near the coral heads.  It was fabulous.

So many fish!

This is one of the smallest snorkelling sites that Nicky and I have visited but the number and variety of the fish in the area and the clarity of the water made it one of the best sites that we have been to.

We saw lots and lots of Sergeant majors but it seemed that most of the fish in our
fish identification guide were represented

After the disappointing snorkelling at the anchorages that we had visited so far with Nici and Strevs, it was a real pleasure that we were able to share this site with them.

Nicky and I braved the current and swam around to the outside (the east side) of the islet.  Here the water was quite a lot shallower and it didn’t have the coral heads or the profusion of fish.  Clearly, the protection of the islet’s curve provides just the right environment for the coral to grow and the fish-life to flourish.

Sergeant majors and French grunts

Nici spotted a Nurse shark having a quiet lie down on the sand.  They’re nocturnal fish and during the day more normally sleep under rocky ledges

After at least half an hour in the water enjoying the wonderful profusion of fish, we jumped into the dinghy and headed back towards BV.

But we had one more snorkelling spot to check out en route.  Here a light aircraft had crashed and then sunk in 7 or 8m of water.  Shallow enough to be seen clearly from the surface and also to dive down to for a closer look.

We saw few corals on the aircraft and very few fish but in the clear water the wreck stood out well on the sandy bottom, though we didn’t see the broken off tail plane anywhere close by.

We’ve got no idea how long the aircraft has been down there but it really added a fun element to the day and put O’Brien Cay ‘on the map’ as our favourite snorkelling place in the Bahamas as well as one of the best spots that we had been to.

O’Briens Cay, Bahamas

Bitter Guana Cay & Great Guana Cay Bahamas

This blog entry has been edited to add in some extra photographs of Black Point Settlement courtesy of Strevs and Nici.

A lovely looking house (or perhaps a small hotel) en route to Bitter Guana Cay

Having spent a lovely hour or so snorkelling in Thunderball Grotto we decided to spend the afternoon peering at the iguanas of Bitter Guana Cay.  The wind was not helpful to us and the area between Staniel Cay and Bitter Guana Cay is very shallow with several narrow winding passages so we had to take a circuitous route between one and the other.

Approaching Bitter Guana Cay

The quickest and easiest way to travel was under power, so Mr Beta got a bit of a workout.

We anchored off, ate lunch and headed ashore.

Even from where we were anchored we could see the iguanas on the beach.

Close up they are surprisingly large….

…..fast on their feet and keen to investigate new arrivals – presumably hoping for titbits (which we had not brought).

And they’re not scared to get close either, which is very useful for taking photos!

“I’m posing; have you got my best side?”

“Oh I do like that pretty blue boat over there.”  “What boat? Look, there might be food this way.”

BV from the high point on Bitter Guana Cay

Having spent long enough with the iguanas we set our sights on scaling the cay’s highest point.  Unsurprisingly it didn’t take too long – the most difficult part was working our way through the scrub on the dunes backing the beach.

Looking northeast

Despite the lack of height, we had great views along the line of the cay and across to Exuma Sound…..

The Exuma Sound side of Bitter Guana Cay in a brisk east-northeasterly……

……where the brisk wind was making everything a little lumpy.  It made for lovely views and fun at the cliff edge…..

…..and the Grand Bahamas Bank side of Bitter Guana Cay in the same weather conditions.  Barrier islands, don’t ya just love ‘em?

…..but the Bank side of the islands was definitely the place to be that day.

Approaching Great Guana Cay

After trying a different route down to the shore (it didn’t work!) we retraced our steps to returned to the dinghy. Once back on board BV we motored and sailed south along Bitter Guana Cay, past Dotham cut to Great Guana Cay where we anchored off Black Point settlement for the night.  The anchorage here is huge with a good, clear sandy bottom.  It has great holding and fabulous protection from the prevailing northeasterly winds all the way round to southerly winds, perhaps even from winds a little west of south.

Going ashore at Black Point Settlement [Photos by Strevs & Nici]

We’d heard that the settlement was worth exploring so we pottered ashore for a looksee.

Looking out across the anchorage [Photos by Strevs & Nici]

The Police Station and the Government Clinic [Photos by Strevs & Nici]

[Photo by Strevs & Nici]

It seems to be a nice little place (with the operative word being ‘little’) with a useful small store, a laundry, which is reported to be excellent, and a few bar/restaurants.

[Photos by Strevs & Nici]

[Photos by Strevs & Nici]

Dark and Stormies with coconut fried prawns for Happy Hour

In the excitement of deciding that we would do happy hour and then dinner ashore I failed to get any pictures, other than of our happy hour food, but the Dark and Stormies were very good and the coconut fried prawns excellent so we can safely say that a good evening was had by all.  A big thanks to Strevs and Nici for not only spoiling us with a lovely dinner but for also supply some extra photos for the blog.

Given the time that Nici and Strevs had available, Great Guana Cay was the furthest south we intended to go. The following day we planned to begin retracing our steps north but the great bonus of the Exumas is that there are so many places to see we knew that we would not be revisiting any of the anchorages at which we had stopped on the way south.

Bitter Guana Cay & Great Guana Cay, Bahamas

Thunderball Grotto Bahamas

We had a busy day of motoring and anchoring but not going anywhere too far planned for Friday 29 March.  First up was to move from Big Majors Spot to the anchorage close to Thunderball Grotto, a distance of all of 1.5nm, so that we could swim in the cave (as featured in the James Bond film Thunderball) with hundreds of fish.

It was a blustery and fairly overcast day and, to be honest, the water didn’t look terribly inviting as we motored up the shallow channel past Staniel Cay towards the islet which houses the grotto.

Left: Thunderball Grotto is a cave at the northern (far) end of the islet on the left.  Right: Looking south just after entering the pool.  The motoryacht is moored at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club

Between the south end of Big Majors Spot and the northwest side of Staniel Cay there’s a large, sandy shallow area with 3 islets on the eastern side and a relatively deep pool (max 3m) in the centre; Thunderball Grotto is at the northern end of the chain of islets.  We could have reached the cave by dinghy from the anchorage off ‘pig beach’ but it would have been a 1nm or so ride in a fully laden dinghy and, with a brisk breeze blowing and plenty of cloud cover, the ride would have been wet, cold and slow, hence the decision to move BV closer and to anchor in the pool west of the islets.

Thunderball Grotto entrance with a plethora of small tripper
boats outside – this will be slack water then!
This picture was taken as we departed

The cave is accessible at all stages of the tide but due to the tidal flow through the area it is best to visit at slack water.  However, slack water rarely occurs at exactly high water or low water, it’s usually a little after – how far after we didn’t know.  We anchored in the pool at low water and, after a short faff getting everything together dinghied across to the cave entrance which we had identified by the simple expedient of watching where a couple of other dinghies were heading.  The cruising guide talks about dinghy mooring balls but there were none in evidence so we anchored off and jumped in……into a huge shoal of fish.  Even outside the cave there were loads of fish to see.

Inside the grotto looking out through the narrow
entrance we used (though the picture makes
it look narrower than it really is)

Despite it being low water, the was still flowing onto the Grand Bahamas Bank (in) quite fast so we needed to swim strongly against it to get to the cave’s entrance.  The advantage of arriving at around low water is that you don’t need to swim underwater to get into the cave.  Despite this, the entrance is narrow and can be a little tricky to negotiate; fins are a great help.

View into the roof of the second chamber

Once inside we found that the cave opens out into 2 main areas.  The first, next to the entrance we swam in through, has a lower ceiling but the water here was filled with huge numbers of colourful reef fish. The second chamber is much higher and larger and there are holes in the roof here through which, on a really nice day, the sunshine pours through, spectacularly illuminating the water below. Being a bit grey on the day that we visited, we didn’t get quite that effect but it was still impressive and there were absolutely enormous shoals of grunts hovering near the eastern (Exuma Sound side) entrance.  Wow! But not as colourful as the myriad fish in the smaller chamber.

Thunderball Grotto views.  There was a huge number of fish just inside the western entrance to the grotto, many of them a good size and very colourful. Bottom left: Queen angelfish and Sergeant majors.  Bottom right:   Queen angelfish, Sergeant majors and White grunts

Underwater in the second (larger) chamber.  Being larger the density of fish was much lower here but there was an enormous school of grunts (partially depicted bottom right) close to the western entrance to the grotto (always underwater, shown bottom centre)

Left: Sergeant majors (vertical stripes), White grunts (yellow tails and fins), Clown wrasse (horizontal stripes) and a Squirrelfish (red, on the right of the picture)

Whilst the size of the schools in the larger chamber was impressive, we all particularly enjoyed watching the swarms of bright colourful reef fish in the first chamber we had entered and spent a long time floating around, enjoying the spectacle.

Left: French angelfish. Right:  More Sergeant majors, a White grunt and (we think) some Blue chromis

Top: looking north as we left the pool where we anchored.  Behind the yachts is the southeast point of Big Majors Spot.  Centre left: Thunderball Grotto is at the northern end of the islet on the right.  Centre right: heading south towards the Staniel Cay Yacht Club on Staniel Cay after leaving the pool anchorage.  Bottom: Looking west into the pool anchorage.  Note the deep water channel (dark blue), the shallow bank around the anchorage (brownish) and the shallow water in the anchorage (turquoise)

Eventually, slack tide approached and suddenly we found lots more groups of people arriving to join us in the cave. It was time for us to leave to let them enjoy the experience, so we headed back to BV….

…. took a last look at the Thunderball Grotto dinghy anchorage (now busy with small tripper boats) ……

Leaving the anchorage close to Thunderball Grotto with a trawler-motoryacht anchored just outside one of the entrances. From this angle there looks to be (and there is) plenty of space, but when we arrived the yacht appeared almost to be blocking the entrance

…… and headed off toward Bitter Guana Cay for lunch and a spot of iguana watching.

Thunderball Grotto, Staniel Cay, Bahamas